Old Faithful and Bambi - Thursday evening run. Start six fifty-five - 1855 (5:55GMT) Run 555 on the 5th of the 5th 2005

Droke, direction East Dean off A285

SU924127

We arrived at the car park to find a healthy number of hashers all eager to commence the 555th run on the 05-05-05. The Can Man called the pack to order and gave a brief speech about 555 feet above sea level and other 555 related items before handing us over to the Hares who set us off into the woods on a bright May evening.
The trail led us parallel with the road and those of us who had run here before (87.5% of us) all knew that the trail would turn sharply upward. However Patch had not run here before and did not know that we were supposed to turn up the hill to the right and he crossed the road and went up the hill to the left - foolish boy!!
As it happened he was right and the pack was led up a steep hill towards the top of Charlton Forest!! So much for local knowledge.
We had a choice at the next fork and of course the true trail was up and ever up!
Due to the steepness of the hills there were a couple of regroups and it must be said that the hares did offer help to those who were athletically challenged (the entire pack). Robin (younger version) was bounding away so far ahead that we lost sight of him on many occasions.
There were a few occasions where hashers were economical with the trail and rumour had it that they ‘short cutted!!!’
I had to follow a few of them just to check out that they were in fact shortcutting and Karen shouting ‘checking...’ in a loud voice fooled nobody (except fairly dim hashers).
Old Faithful decided to liven things up by twisting his ankle which was a bit much as he laid the trail so he should have know where the ground was a bit suspect.
Still the pack reacted with sympathy and left him to with in agony and scurried off down the hill. By this time Mussolini was on his old hunting grounds and between him, Sinbad and The Gnu we began to head for home at a fine pace (well fine for hashers).
The trail started to go downwards and even hashers understand that if you run up and then finally head down you may finish up where you started. So lots of calling and then the ON INN was spotted. A few hardy souls managed to break in a shuffle and there we were - back at the chariots were Rasta, Tiger and friends had laid on a mighty spread complete with a cake in yellow with the 555th Hash legend on it.
There was even wine with the name of ‘Bin 555’!

So the pack gathered and The Ref was awarded the hashit and Frogspawn from a hash in China donated two T shirts for the Midsummer raffle. Being tightwads we responded with only one T Shirt but hey........ profit is profit!!!!
So we munched and guzzled and chatted and a fine evening was had by one and all.
Only three days and we are back on the trail again.